ZESCO will today shut down a generator at Kariba North Bank power station, which will lead to a deficit of 165 mega watts as the power utility carries out maintenance works for 14 days.
Zesco director for corporate affairs and business development Bestty Phiri said in a statement yesterday that during the outage, 165 mega watts would not be available to the national grid resulting in a deficit during the period.
He said the power deficit would necessitate load-shedding in order for the company to balance the generation capacity with demand.
Giving a February power system status update, Mr Phiri said Zesco was constrained because power demand had outstripped available capacity.
He said the newly introduced monthly power system updates would mainly relay information relating to the available power generation capacity at the major power stations and the major transmission lines.
“The publication of this information is aimed at assisting customers to effectively plan their power usage and where possible work with Zesco to collectively manage available power,” he said.
Mr Phiri said on January 4, Zesco commenced corrective maintenance works on the 66 KV Sesheke-Mongu transmission line that supplies power to most parts of Western Province.
Similar works were done on the 66 KV Mpika-Kasama transmission line that supplies power to most parts of Luapula and Northern provinces in order to improve security of power supply to the two areas.
He said works were going on smoothly and power was being switched off on selected days as agreed with customers and stakeholders in the respective areas.
Zesco, he said, had identified demand side management as an immediate and cost-effective way of managing the available power which led to reduced load-shedding.
Mr Phiri said Zesco was distributing one million energy saver lamps at no cost to customers and had introduced ‘Time of Use Tariff’ in an effort to save 60 Mega Watts.
As a member of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) Zesco was able to engage in power trade and import when faced with a power deficit but that was subject to availability as most countries in the region were faced with a power deficit.
As at February the Victoria Falls power station had an installed capacity of 108 mega watts although generation was at 100 mega watts, Kariba North Bank has 520 mega watts as available capacity despite having an installed capacity of 720 mega watts.
Kafue Gorge produces 965 mega watts while Lusiwasi is at five mega watts making a total of 1,590 mega watts available capacity instead of the required capacity of 1,830 mega watts.
Tizavutika ife ba ‘kwa’…..
This appears to be way of life as far as zesco is concerned cos we never experienced this trend in the 1990’s.We are not improving at all but just inconveniencing the customers.
This is not Zesco’s problem bane; this problem has been there for the last 25 years; except you are now being hit by the problem today. Its like HIV aids; a person can be sick for years before the visible elements of the disease. This is why government needs infrastructure implementation specialists. Key word: IMPLEMENTATION. A unit that can tell any government of the day the consequences of their action or inaction. for the 20 years of MMD they did not build more capacity yet the population has been increasing hence the the increase in demand. Its the same for sewer systems, water reticulation, roads and the like. So tell me where I can send my CV; which government department? The Unit needs to have people that are politically neutral, objective and mentally strong.
The cuts and shoddy service have been there for many years.
More recently we have seen huge hikes in tariff charges with another 30% + increase promised for the near future.
We are always told that the increases made to our bills are to enable ZESCO to improve structure and services.
It has not happened yet and I hold out no hopes of a change for the better coming in the near future.
Aside from that going to Zimbabwe can anyone tell me how much electricity ZESCO is selling to neighbouring countries and if they are contract bound to do so ?
PF IS MMD RECARNATED. THIRD ADVOCATE SATA IS THE NEW PILOT. ZESCO MD WAS MEANT TO IMPROVE BUT WE ARE BACK TO SQUARE ONE
And the solution will not be visible in thenext 15 years; so we have a generation that will grow knowing too well about power outages; poor roads and lack of water systems. Zambia has two options: (i) Do nothing which is equivalent to the “Fi kaisova” strategy that typifies Zambia. (ii) Do something approach. If Zambia decides to take the latter; the best appraoch is “stepwise”.
as for the former: God help us.
This is very typical of a reactive system. For many years there have been appeals by technocrats to not only align the cost of electricity gradually to enable expansion of capacity for FUTURE growth, but they also gave advice on how this could be done. Alas, we always wait for a problem to far outstrip our wildest imaginations and then begin to grapple around for fickle solutions. It is high time we changed this attitude. Maintain even when something has not yet broken down; improve, even when the need is not immediately visible! You will see how we will go far beyond those that we inherited these things from!!!